15 December

Protesters greeting the Royal Princess Cruise ship in Pōneke on Sunday morning erected a giant banner on the cenotaph and several people were dowsed in “blood” representing the harm done to people, the climate, and the environment.

According to Climate Liberation Aotearoa spokesperson Frank Preddey, the protest aims to raise awareness about the real harm the cruise industry perpetuates due to burning marine diesel oil (MDO), ocean waste, and substandard regulations. “Sea level rise due to the effects of climate change is already threatening several Pacific Islands. People in the global south are have been experiencing the effects of climate change for decades - droughts, flooding, food insecurity for a start” said Frank. “If we continue business as usual things will only get worse. We have already crossed six of the nine planetary boundaries. We cannot continue to extract, exploit, and trash our ecosystems.”

Princess Cruises, a subsidiary of Carnival Cruises, has a spotty history with New Zealand environmental regulatory bodies, with the Coral Princess being turned away in 2022 for insufficient cleaning, known as “biofouling,” that could have introduced invasive species. The company also has a long history of receiving multi-million dollar fines for illegal waste dumping and breaching environmental regulations while on probation. These protesters aim to regulate Princess Cruises and the cruise industry as a whole. In particular, Climate Liberation Aotearoa is campaigning to ban cruise ships entirely from sensitive natural environments such as Fiordland.

“We're talking about an area with real historical and cultural significance to Aotearoa New Zealand, being turned into a commodity for the international cruise industry to wrap up and sell to its customers,” Preddey says. “This area is also the home of ten marine reserves, sensitive natural ecosystems that we haven't actually even begun to understand in earnest; but still we roll out the red carpet for hundreds of loud, massive, massively polluting luxury cruises to pass through every summer. Even if every data point in the NZCA’s press release was true, it wouldn’t be worth the environmental costs.”

Otago University’s Dr. Inga Smith reported that going on a cruise is on average 3-4 times more harmful to the environment than flying and staying in a hotel. According to a different study from 2021, as much as 90% of waste produced on cruise ships is discharged into the ocean. “We don't begrudge people taking holidays; we encourage sustainable slow forms of tourism that do not harm the natural environment and promote connection with local people,” says Preddey.

Climate Liberation Aotearoa will continue to spotlight the cruise industry through out the summer season.

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